• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

September 19, 2013 Classroom Management

Mobile Devices in the Hands of our Children Part 1: Management and Safety

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Lori H Rice

Lori Rice is a fourth-grade teacher at West Elementary in Wamego, Kansas, who has taught K-2 reading as well as kindergarten, first grade and fourth grade since 1996. She has a passion for creativity, learning, questioning and the whole child. Her classroom is a place of acceptance and celebrating differences.
  • Bringing Project Based Learning to our Classroom - August 12, 2018
  • Keep the Engagement Alive: Start the Year with Purpose - August 5, 2018
  • It's Our Fault: A Teacher's Confession - March 18, 2018
  • Keeping Your Teaching Real: A Teacher's Role - March 11, 2018
  • Sketch Notes in the Elementary Classroom - February 15, 2017
  • Teach From the Heart - February 9, 2017
  • Who is the Teacher: School or Family? - January 11, 2017
  • Dear President Elect Trump, From Your Teachers - November 17, 2016
  • Let them Be Children - October 21, 2016
  • Print Resources: Great Tools for Kids - October 17, 2016

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"]

courtesy ucedtech

courtesy ucedtech

Schools and families all over the nation are spending billions of dollars on hand-held mobile devices.  In the United States, ninety-one percent of adults have the world at their fingertips 24/7.  These devices hold the capacity to bring our world into our classrooms, yet teachers and schools are leery of opening these doors.  There are important discussions you can have with your students as well as some simple classroom management ideas you can implement to open the world to your students.  Here are some things to consider and resources to use if your classroom or school is using handheld devices this school year. As Time's Cyrus Beagley said:  “Content in the right context drives engagement.”

Mobile devices are valuable resources with life-long influences and consequences.    When using hand-held devices in classrooms, have discussions with your students regarding their responsibility as a Digital Citizen.  Everything you tweet, post, create, and share has a reach beyond your classroom doors, beyond your schools, into the world.  This should, however, not cause fear and cause you to shut down and lock the “mobile doors.”  Instead, spend the beginning of the year explaining and teaching Digital Citizenship to your students.  It’s a life-long skill and they should understand the digital footprint they are leaving on our world.

  • Interaction--explain your expectations for posts, creations, work and communication with others online.  Blogs, chat rooms, apps, web sites can open the possibility of interaction between your students and others around the globe.  Lead discussions on cyber bullies using http://www.netsmartz.org/cyberbullying and other resources.  Provide students with the tools to understand what cyberbulling is, how to react to cyberbulling, and how to protect themselves.  Discuss the importance of protecting their identity, never sharing personal information, and understanding we never really know who is on the other end of an online interaction. Protecting your students’ identity should go beyond the contract your classroom or school signs and include arming them with information to protect them anywhere online.

 

  • Subject—explain your expectations for posts, creations, work and communication as you learn about and explore subjects on mobile devices.  Communicate clearly your expectations for acceptable content. Have lessons at the beginning of the year about sharing information that will HIT your mark.  Is it Helpful, Interesting, Thought provoking? This should include all content students are creating as well as viewing and using for learning.  Anything on mobile devices has an old school pencil/paper cousin.  If there is something that can be done online, the activity can also be done on paper.  Use this to protect students from themselves should they abuse your subject rules and venture into content, posts, apps or other areas that do not HIT the objectives of the lesson.  Providing students with online content allows you to have current, relevant, and highly engaging material that will increase student participation, interest, and therefore learning.

 

  • Behavior—explain your expectations for posts, creations, work and communication as an extension of your classroom behavior. Discuss with students that everything they do online contributes to their online reputation. Post, creations and online communication represents your classroom and school.  Lead discussion on digital footprints and online safety using http://www.ikeepsafe.org/ and other resources.  Help students understand that while we feel invisible and anonymous online, the reality is everything we do leaves a digital footprint.   Help them be the good person online that they are offline.

 

  • Management—just as you develop your classroom routines and expectations at the beginning of the school year, you must discuss, model, and reinforce your expectations with mobile devices in your room.  Be mobile (pun intended) as your students are working and roam around the room.  If you have had the discussions above and a student is doing something against your expectations take the device.  It is a privilege.  They can meet the objective doing the activity with books, paper, and pencil.  Take the device and give them a different tool for the assignment.  It is that simple.  Follow the pre-determined plan of your classroom or school.  They may lose the device for the session, the week, the month, the quarter, the semester, the year.  They may be partnered with another student so they can access information but not allowed the freedom to roam.  This is an extension of your classroom management and you need to be clear but fair in your implementation.

Teaching is hard work.  There is a never-ending demand of things to do, change, learn, and implement.  Mobile devices are just another tool in our tool belt of knowledge.  Albert Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”  Bringing mobile devices into your classrooms will open the doors to learning beyond your students’ imaginations.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

How I Flipped My Classroom Default ThumbnailKeep Digital Devices in the Hands of Youngsters 5 Ways to Use Emojis in the Classroom Top 5 Things Every Teacher Should Do Before School Starts
« What’s an ESL Teacher Anyway?
New Year, Same Song (Charter School Diaries) »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • Want to Keep Special Education Teachers? Try Mentorship
  • An Idaho teen who won his school board election has a message for educators
  • Moving Beyond Diversity to Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Lessons from a Sunday Sermon
  • Ask the Educator's Room: What do I do if a student won't stop lying?

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.